


Safe

by onekisstotakewithme



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Hawkeye Pierce, Bisexual Male Character, Episode: s08e22 Dreams, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 06:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onekisstotakewithme/pseuds/onekisstotakewithme
Summary: “You should sleep, Beej.”“You’re one to talk. I don’t exactly see you face down in your cot either, Hawk.”“Can’t sleep.”“Your eyelids tell a different story.”“Don’t want to sleep.”Beej rewards this idiocy with a laugh. “Me neither.”





	Safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flootzavut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flootzavut/gifts).



> ♥

Somehow, the three of them have staggered back to the Swamp, and Hawkeye isn’t certain of what day or month or year it is, but he is certain that he doesn’t want to sleep, that there’s no _way_ he’ll be sleeping tonight.

He’s clearly not the only one, because Charles is staring at the ceiling, his eyes occasionally sliding shut, only for him to shake back awake, clearly dreading whatever awaits him in sleep.

Hawkeye barely has three brain cells left to rub together, and if Charles hadn’t opened his stupid mouth, Hawkeye would already be making love to Morpheus. Instead of focusing on Charles, he turns to Beej. Beej who is lying on his cot, also still awake, and staring at his photo of Peg.

It makes Hawk’s heart hurt, staring at him, and even if he isn’t sleeping, he doesn’t want to be alone tonight. He manages the few steps it takes to crash land onto Beej’s cot, narrowly avoiding landing on his best friend in the process. He’s sitting, but only barely, and Beej somehow finds the energy to sit up and rest his head against Hawk’s shoulder, nuzzling into him like a cat.

“You should sleep, Beej.”

“You’re one to talk. I don’t exactly see you face down in your cot either, Hawk.”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Your eyelids tell a different story.”

“Don’t want to sleep.”

Beej rewards this idiocy with a laugh. “Me neither.”

Hawk forces his eyelids open again and looks at Beej, who even through a sleepy haze is still the best thing Hawk has seen since starting this war. Without thinking, he wraps an arm around Beej, whose head is still on his shoulder. Having Beej warm and breathing against him is grounding him in ways he didn’t expect, considering how detached he’s felt since that… _nightmare_. “Why don’t you want to sleep?” he asks.

“Cause… if I sleep I’ll dream,” Beej mumbles. “And I can’t handle that.”

 “What’s the matter, Beej, have a nightmare during your six-second nap?”

“No.” He doesn’t elaborate, but then lifts his head. “Why, Hawk, did you?”

“It was nothing… nothing worse than everything I’ve seen here.”

“Hawkeye,” Beej insists. “If it’s bothering you enough that you aren’t going to bed, I’d say it’s not nothing.”

“What do you know anyway? You didn’t even have a nightmare.”

“No, I was just reminded again of how far I am from home, and Erin… and Peg.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“So if you don’t want to sleep… and I don’t want to sleep… let’s not sleep together.”

“What do you suggest?” Beej asks through another yawn. “A rousing game of Double Cranko?”

“You keep me awake, I’ll keep you awake.”

“And how do you plan on doing that from your cot?” Beej asks.

“What do you mean _my cot_? I’m staying right here.”

“This cot is single-occupancy. Room for one.”

“Well don’t worry Beej, in my condition, I’m only half the man I used to be. Now budge over, and gimme some blanket.”

“No. If I give you some blanket, you’ll want more blanket, and that leaves me cold.”

“Don’t worry,” Hawk mumbles, his eyelids sliding shut again. He forces them open. “I’ll keep you warm.”

“What about Charles?”

“What _about_ Charles? He’s already snoring. C’mon Beej. Don’t make me get down on my knees and beg. I won’t be able to get up again if I do.”

“All right, all right.” Beej stands up for a second, tugs Hawk to his feet, and throws back the blankets. The two of them collapse in a heap onto it before Beej pulls his blanket over them. It’s a tight fit, and the cot creaks ominously beneath their combined weight. “Half a man, huh Hawk? Not according to my cot.”

“If I were still alive, I’d be insulted,” Hawkeye mumbles, nuzzling into Beej’s chest. It’s a tight fit, but he’s already relaxed a little, the tension left in his shoulders from his nightmare dissipating.

Beej turns so that they’re facing each other in their little nest of blankets. “All right, Hawk?”

“Fine. If you don’t mind sharing your cot with a genuine corpse.”

“If you start rotting, I’m shoving you out.” Beej’s eyes drift closed for a second, his words trailing off in a mumble, leaving Hawk to nudge him in the chest.

“Oh no no no! Don’t you dare! You’re not sleeping!”

“I’m not sleeping!” Beej insists, squinting at Hawk. “You’ve just gone fuzzy.”

“Tell me about your dream,” Hawk says, and that has the desired effect. They’re practically nose to nose, and Hawk would be in heaven if he weren’t still feeling so disconcerted.

“I was dressed up nicely…”

“Class As?” Hawk asks.

“No, no, like _real_ clothes, Hawk. A tuxedo… at least I think it was… and the doors opened, and there she was.”

“Peg?”

This brings a sleepy smile to Beej’s face, and Hawk wonders if this is entirely appropriate. They’ve always been casually intimate, because this is what happens in a war zone, but sharing a cot is uncharted territory. Though considering Beej’s reception of the idea, Hawk is wishing he’d tried it sooner. “Yeah, it was Peg. God, Hawk,” he sighs. “She’s so beautiful, you know? I forget sometimes when all I have to look at is a picture… I even worry sometimes that I’ll forget what she looks like. But she was there, in this beautiful dress and everything, and we were dancing…” He yawns.

“The two of you were dancing?”

“Oh yeah, Peg and I… love dancing. I’m a great dancer, Hawk.”

“Really? With feet that big, I’m amazed.”

Beej chuckles at the jab, and nudges Hawk with one of his too-big feet. “Peg doesn’t mind my feet, you know.”

“I’ll bet she doesn’t,” Hawk murmurs, earning a sharper kick from Beej. “You don’t know what they say about big feet?”

“Shut up, Hawkeye.” Beej is laughing though, and then he shakes his head. “We were dancing… and dancing, and there was music and then…” The smile disappears. “Potter taps me on the shoulder and hands me a scalpel.”

“I guess he cut in.”

Beej gives him a look, and Hawk giggles at his own stupid pun, feeling more and more human by the second. “And then Peg left… because I couldn’t dance… I was too busy saving lives.”

“Listen, Beej, I’m no Sidney Freedman, but I think I see your problem.”

Beej fixes his eyes on Hawk. “Any idiot could tell you what my problem is.”

“Will this idiot do?” Hawk asks, and Beej smiles.

 “Yeah, Hawk, you’ll do… and besides, the whole camp knows my problem. I’m not at home, where Peg needs me, I’m here-,”

“Where the wounded need you,” Hawk says. _Where I need you,_ he thinks. “Peg knows that you’re saving lives, Beej.”

“Doesn’t make it easier, Hawk.”

“No one said it did.”

“What if… what if by the time I get home, we don’t know each other anymore?”

“Beej…” Hawk’s heart is breaking all over again, because maybe he needs Beej, but Beej needs his family more. He reaches down and finds Beej’s hand among the blankets, taking it and squeezing it. “I know next to nothing about marriage, you know that. But from what I’ve seen of yours… you’re going to be okay. Do you know how many guys I’ve seen come through here who didn’t give a damn about their wives back home? You’re not like that, Beej.”

“Talk is cheap.”

“Maybe it is. And maybe I’m wrong, but Beej at the same time, maybe I’m right.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Beej admits. “Though I hate to admit it.” He eyes Hawk. “What about you? Usually by now, you’d be off in the land of Nod. And yet here you are, awake and in my cot… and shaking I might add.”

Hawkeye hadn’t noticed, but Beej is right. He’s shaking like a leaf, except for the hand tightly clasped in BJ’s. “Okay, maybe I was a little… rattled by the dream I had.”

“Was it a nightmare?” Beej asks, narrowing his eyes at Hawkeye. Nightmares are nothing to sneeze at around here, especially when they occur more frequently than the common cold, but Hawkeye has to admit that his nightmares in particular aren’t exactly par for the course. And Beej, having seen him through many terrified moments following such nightmares, knows this better than anyone.

“Something like that,” Hawk admits. Beej squeezes his hand again. He feels the shaking get worse as he thinks about the dream again. He’s here, and warm, with all limbs present and accounted for, but the chills racing down his spine are not so easily convinced that it was all a dream.

“What happened, Hawk? You look like you’re a million miles from here.”

Hawk blinks, and meets Beej’s eye and shakes his head. “They took off my arms, Beej.”

“Your… arms?”

“I was… sleeping, and then they woke me and asked me if I knew the procedure for reattaching a limb, but I slept through it… and…” He swallows hard. “This… this doctor… and… and _Charles,_ took my arms off. Just twisted and pulled. Voila, arms off.”

“And then what?” Beej asks. He knows, without Hawkeye having to say anything, that there’s more. With Hawkeye, there always is.

“I was… in a boat… with all of these limbs floating around, but they were… they weren’t real. Mannequins. Dummies. And on the shore… there was this kid… Wounded.” The kids are always the worst and Beej gets it.

“And you didn’t have any arms.”

“And I walked up to that operating table with that poor kid on it, and a nurse handed me a scalpel, but what could I do? I didn’t have any arms, Beej. I couldn’t do anything, and all I could hear was choppers, and…” His own scream echoes in his ears, and he opens his eyes to find Beej studying him. He feels the sudden need to stop whatever sympathy is about to come his way with a joke, but can’t muster it.

Beej is clutching his hand, and he leans his forehead against Hawkeye’s. “It’s okay, Hawk. Just a dream.”

“I know, Beej, but I was… _helpless._ ”

“Now I’m no psychiatrist,” Beej says softly. “But since I know you, Hawk, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that you never feel like you’re helping enough.”

“I patch up holes in kids and then send them back to get bigger holes.” He takes a shuddering breath. “It doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to figure out that I feel helpless.”

“It’s okay, Hawk.” Beej lifts Hawk’s hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to it. “It’s okay.”

Hawkeye opens his mouth, but he suddenly can’t find words to express thanks for Beej’s tenderness. Instead he closes his eyes, trying to stave off the inevitable tears. “Beej,” he says at last. “Thank you.”

“Don’t go to sleep on me,” Beej warns. “Don’t leave me behind. Awake, I mean.”

Hawkeye hears what he isn’t saying, and nods. “I’m not going anywhere, Beej. I’m staying right here, so I can cause all kinds of trouble.”

Beej smiles. “Good.”

“But you aren’t allowed to leave me behind either, Beej. It goes both ways.”

“I know, Hawk. And I’m not leaving either. Not without you, anyway.” He yawns. “If my orders came tomorrow… I’d smuggle you home in a duffle bag. Erin could use a second dad.”

“Oh, I see. You’ve fallen in love with Charles?”

Beej snorts. “Are you kidding, Hawk? I would never fall in love with Charles! If I tried to share a cot with him, his ego would flatten me!"

"I can hear you, you cretins and I would never share a cot with you. _Ever_!" Charles is irate, but this sets the two of them off, and Hawkeye is laughing, and he feels better than he has all day. But then, he and Beej are so tired that anything is funny.

“Oh, go back to sleep, Charles, you’re dreaming!” Hawk calls through his giggles, and when he’s met with silence, he curls in closer to Beej. “So you haven’t fallen in love with Charles?”

“No, Hawk, he’s the one person in this tent I’d be least likely to fall in love with,” Beej says, rolling his eyes in exasperated fondness. “Too much pomp, and all the wrong circumstance. You sleepy yet?”

“I’m not sleepy,” Hawk says through a yawn. “I’m dead. Have them bury me next to you, okay?”

“Sure thing. I’d hate to be the only corpse in this graveyard.”

“We’re staying awake, remember?”

“Do you have any suggestions as to _how_ , Hawk?”

“Sure.” Hawk gives him an exhausted grin, which is really just turning the corners of his mouth up. “Pick a place.”

Beej nods. “Right. Uh… okay. Mill Valley.”

“Oh, thanks,” Hawk tells him, and is rewarded with a real smile from Beej. “Y… Y… Yucatán!”

“Where is _that_?”

“Mexico.”

“Why do you always go for Mexico?”

“Because you keep giving me impossible letters. C’mon, your turn, before the flowers on my grave bloom. You owe me an _N._ ”

“Uh… Nebraska.”

 “That’s an _A…_ Auckland. And I’d try my hand at an accent, but you’d have to resurrect me for the privilege.” Hawk grins. Beej smiles back.

“D… I owe you a D. Denmark!”

“I’ve gotta stop going easy on you, especially since you never return the favor. Where am I going to find a _K_?”

“We’re living in one,” Beej mumbles.

“Fine then, Korea.” They’re both quiet for a second, and then Hawkeye sighs. “Well that killed the game.”

“Good, it’ll go nicely buried next to my brain,” Beej mumbles. “I’m so tired, Hawk.”

“Me too, Beej.” He yawns. “How about a lullaby?”

“I’m in no condition to sing, Hawk. Want a bedtime story instead?”

 “Does it end with happily ever after?”

“Depends,” Beej says, opening his eyes again. “Has the war ended yet?”

“I think I’d remember if it had.”

“Then how about we dream up our own happy endings?” Beej asks, squeezing Hawkeye’s hand again.

“I’m scared though, Beej.”

“I’ve got you, Hawk.” Beej pulls him in even closer, and then kisses the top of Hawk’s head. “Don’t worry. I’ll fight off the nightmares with my bare hands. We need to sleep. _You_ need to sleep.”

“I’m scared to sleep.”

“You’re safe, Hawk. You’ve got me.”

“And maybe you can pretend I’m Peg,” Hawk teases.

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“Maybe I don’t want you to either,” Hawk says, his censors shutting down for the night. “But it’s for the best. Neither of us wants to be alone, and we’re both tired and far from home, and I’m the best you’ve got.”

“You’re right, Hawk. You’re the best I’ve got.” Beej smiles down at Hawk, and it’s already like the sun has broken for a new day, because Beej is all light where Hawk is darkness, and warm where Hawk is cold, and he’s leaning down and kissing Hawkeye, who freezes for a second. _I must’ve fallen asleep again,_ Hawk thinks. _This is a dream. It has to be_.

And then he unfreezes because _this is real_ , kissing Beej back, gently, and Beej pulls away, and then kisses Hawk again, on the forehead. “Good night sweet prince,” Beej teases.

Hawk curls into his side, knowing that he’s safe to sleep, and safe to dream, tangled up with Beej.

Beej, who will be there when he wakes up.

And as it happens, Hawk dreams about Beej, and Beej dreams about Hawk, and there may be a war going on outside, but their dreams are peaceful.


End file.
